This should probably taken with some grain of salt. Teams that don’t have lottery picks or already have their power forward-center rotations set can be more cavalier with their prospect rankings. They either don’t need Bender or won’t have the opportunity to draft him, so his place in the player pool before them doesn’t actually matter.

The Celtics are different.

Owners of the No. 3 pick, their opinion of Dragan Bender matters. And, apparently, they don’t have him atop their board either:

Bender not the top guy on Boston's board… they are very high on Jaylen Brown and Marquese Chriss https://t.co/LMhvbIaPIb

We’re going to assume this pecking order includes Brandon Ingram and Ben Simmons at one and two, though not necessarily in that order, followed by Jaylen Brown and Marquese Chriss. And if true, it’ll be interesting to see where Bender ends up.

There always seems to be one prospect who slips down the draft board. Could Bender be it?

Or is this all a smokescreen, something we’ll look back upon as a nonexistent obstacle for what is sure to be a top-five pick?